Hi All,

this is my first post on this forum.
I have a home studio which i use to record my own stuff as well as some friend's music, mainly pop/rock.
I have a Roland VM-7200 digital mixers with 16 ADAT i/os connected to my mac which runs Logic pro 7 via an RMEADAT card.
I used to use loads of hardware synth but with the power and convenience of plugins, I find I use less these days (i still have a couple of HW synth). Now I have considered going mixer less and buying a control surface. However, I thought that the price of buying a new decent soundcard (mine is ADAT only) with good preamps, + control surface +something like a Mackie Big Knob far outweights the money i'd get for my mixer (which has all that built in + some control surface capabilities, albeit limited).
So, so far I have decided to stick with it.
Now, my question is: How should I best use my mixer in that context?

What do people in the same situation do?

At the moment, I route signal from Logic back to the mixer (as my tape returns) all at 0db and adjust the volumes and pans on the mixer directly. I tend to group some signals as I often have more returns than actual channels. So typically I have:

Kick -> ch1
Snare 2
HH 3-4
Toms 5-6
Guitar1 7
Guitar2 8
Synth 9-10
Fx returns 11-12
etc...
I also tend to adjust panning on the console (for instance making stereo field narroweer for some instruments etc...)
Any ideas, advice, best practices is more than welcome.
Thanks (and sorry for the long post)